But surely even tho the shading was different on the characters in CMI (something I didnt even notice until I studied the game more closely as research for an art project) their STYLES are the same? And I may be wrong about this, but dont most cartoon animations to have flat coloured characters against more detailed backgrounds (easier to animate simpler characters, whereas u put more detail into a still background). ANYWAYS, this isnt really helping you adventureman! Photo-realistic and toon in my mind are completely different. I think with toon characters on a photo background wot ull get is something along the lines of "who framed roger rabbit" (which iv got nothing against)! Having said all that, I reckon at the end of the day the best thing for u to do is choose whichever one YOU think works best... because as long as you have a clear idea in your head what you want the game to look like, you'll be able to make it work.

Much to Think About
Thanks for all the feedback guys. As with any aesthetic decision there are many ways to look at it. I'll mull it over and pick one. It may come down to file size or game performance in the end.

German Web TV
Recently saw a spike in German visitors to my site and traced it back to this webvideo. http://www.ehrensenf.de/2007/02/14/botschaft-aus-dem-all-ast-kunst-liebe-und-fleisch/ If you scroll to the end of the video there's a few seconds of gameplay from "Something Amiss" and they provide a link below. Crazy how these things take on a life of their own. It really is like wildfire.

:shock: are you on commission lol?

Cool. Exposure can't be a bad thing... unless you're on a bandwidth budget!! BTW: I've been reading Tucker's book that this game is based upon. I'm about 2/3 of the way through. Not too shabby... you're a good writer Tucker! The story is pretty bizarre, but intrieging at the same time. I'll say more after I've finished it. Should be pretty quick now considering I'll soon have a daily metro commute.

Thanks
Thanks Greg, Appreciate your kind words. It's been fun trying to adapt the story to a gaming environment. Tucker

Beta Testing Chapter Two
Hi all, I need your help beta -*test*-('")ing chapter two. The bulk of it is finished, I've just got to work on Alice a bit more. (Her animations don't all line up and the lighting is rendered incorrectly on her.) Otherwise, the game is ready to go. At least I hope it is... I need your help scouring the chapter for any bugs. Please let me know if things froze or started acting weird for you. Also, let me know how long load times were. The two big problem areas (in terms of bugs) for me were the temple maze and conversation with the sick woman. They work ok for me now but there were a lot of bugs to fix along the way. I want to make sure I got them all. Besides bugs, let me know your impressions for this chapter. What puzzles did you like the most / least? And finally, please treat this link confidentially and don't share it beyond the forums. I don't want to officially go live until all the kinks are ironed out. Thanks fellow developers! Presenting the beta version of chapter two! *EDIT* I've taken down the link in anticipation fo the live release.

Oh my gosh... I know I've said this before, but you guys are amazing. I mean that as "you Lassie developers" in general. Tucker, John, Nige... I have no idea how you build these things. I swear, I'm blown away by the quality and the ways in which you harness the engine. Tucker, I have no idea how you built those in-room book displays with an exit arrow... er, oh wait, is that just using "setSpriteDraw"?!? Probably is now that i think about it. Wow. Like I say, you guys are geniuses. That's really clever, tying it in with an exit arrow like that.

Wow, very nice! I totally agree with Greg! :) As you asked for -*test*-('")ers, there are some suggestions though: - When entering the password you cannot see which letter you already typed. Seeing what you're typing would be helpful - The walking animation in the first "room" is a little bit too fast I think, it looks like she is rather hovering above the floor (sand) ! ;) - The "drag the corner effect" on the journal is cool! :) - Action "Pick up spikey plant" results in "New dialog text" (room with spider in the foreground and a cave in the background in it) - No background music or speech effects or my Firefox under Linux doesn't play them. Are there any? Would be nice to have some sounds :) - When trying to walk into the cave (in the room with spider in foreground) it looks like she's walking onto something or up a smill "hill". If this wasn't intended (I can't see it as it is dark right before and in the cave) the perpective maybe needs to be adapted that she rather stops in front of the cave while saying that she needs a light... - The gorilla is awesome! Did you sketch, paint and animate him totally yourself or did you get a draft from somewhere? - In the room with the sick woman, I can take as many pills as I want which leads to a overfilled inventory. Maybe a restriction of only being able to have one set of pills at a time in the inventory would be nice? And if one tries to take further pills she just says she already has some? :roll: - The action area of the sick woman is a bit too large I think, I can actualle click on the bed or bell and still act on the sick woman. Don't have time to play the chapter at the end right now, so that's it so far! I hope you don't think now I want to talk your game bad or something like that, I really like it. You asked for suggestions... ;) greets Lars.

Thanks
Appreciate the feedback. It's incredibly helpful. The more strange things you find, the better. Don't hold back! I can't take credit for those in-room book displays. I got the idea from Nige. They're a great way of getting a lot of information across without dialogue. I just didn't want the player to have to load them in every room (that's why you can't pick them up.) *But if you load them once would you not have to load them each time you enter a new room with the same swf? That would make me rethink adding them to the inventory. Lars, some of the swf's were created with Flash 8 so if Linux doesn't go up that far you might be missing some music and elements. I considered using a lower flash version but then i couldn't do some of the effects like the campfire. The gorilla is a 3D model I purchased. I lit and animated him eating bananas. Had to make him small b/c the file size is pretty big. Those are real gorilla sounds I got from my sound FX collection. I agree that seeing what you type would be helpful in the password room but I couldn't figure out a way to do it. I tried it as an ambiant flash file but everytime you started to type something the menu would pop up! Thanks again for the comments. Let me know if you get stuck trying to beat the chapter. The puzzles are harder then chapter one. Tucker

Cache
I just noticed that Firefox was loading the cached version of Alice from Chapter one in Chapter Two. I'll have to rename the swf file of the newer version. So, if Alice doesn't have a shadow under her you've got the old version and might need to dump your cache to get the new one.

Hint Guide
Ok, added the new thread and posted a hint guide. Give the game a -*test*-('") drive and let me know how she handles. BTW, I used a bunch of your South American photos. Montaged them into 3 rooms which comprise the jungle temple. Thanks again for letting me use them!